A site about recovering from a stroke

Reverse Direction

I was just lying on the floor on my stomach (prone position) and it felt really good. I had been sitting upright in a chair for a long time today doing work so it felt good to change position. You know how when you’ve been curled up in a ball for a while it feels so good to stretch out your leg and arm muscles Well, a similar thing happens in your spine, but also not similar.

Imagine that you’ve been curled up in the fetal position for a long time – it’s going to feel really good to then stretch out because you’re reversing the direction of the muscles. You’re now stretching out what was shortened for a while and that feels really good.

The reason it felt so good to me to lay on my stomach and have my spine bent a little backwards after it being somewhat bent forward from sitting most of the day has nothing to do with muscles. (I was sitting with horrible posture today all slouched forward on the couch, keep that in mind)

Those discs in your back, the ones in between your vertebrae….well when it comes to your back, they are most likely the reason it feels so good to stretch out after being curled up for a while, not the muscles. The discs are malleable. They have a fluid of sorts in them, they’re soft. So when you curl up your spine and slouch forward for while, all the soft stuff inside those discs gets pushed to the back (of the disc). When you reverse the direction, all that soft stuff inside the disc is getting pushed forward. Reversing the direction of your spine feels good because of the discs. The vast majority of people present with a cause of pain in the low back from too much bending forward of the spine, so you probably want to reverse that. Although, if you’ve ever been to physical therapy for back pain, and you were discharged having been made fearful of bending forward, of flexion, this is not good. You shouldn’t be fearful of any movement of the body. You simply need to learn how to best perform these movements and the best way to do that is to learn about posture and body mechanics. This book is awesome and explains everything I’m talking about.

You know how you’re always told to get up and walk some throughout the day if working a desk job? You don’t want anything in one position for a prolonged period of time, so move and learn about posture. Muscles, joints, discs. A disc in a bad position for a prolonged period of time can cause A LOT of BADproblems. However, if you’re marinating chicken. That should stay in one position for a while, at least 12 hours.

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Disclaimer…

This blog IS NOT intended to be medical advice of any sort. I am writing about my experiences, my knowledge, and my opinions. My goal is to tell people what I'm going through and hopefully help someone.
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All that being said, rest assured that everything you read on this blog is written by a highly educated, highly trained, and highly experienced medical practitioner.
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Dr. Amy Elder (formerly Shissler) PT, DPT, Cert. MDT------my full name and title